Of Smoke and Apologies
by fleurofthecourt
Summary: Fill for Kink-Meme prompt: To make up for the way he treated Monroe, Nick decides to cook dinner for Monroe. Too bad Nick sucks at cooking. Can be slash or platonic. [Episode Tag for s02e20: Kiss of the Muse]


After the whole ordeal with the musai, Monroe had simply gone home. He'd waited up for Nick for a while, but he was kind of glad for it when it seemed like his waiting up would be more odd than appreciated. As much as he felt like he ought to just forget the matter entirely, he really hadn't quite forgiven Nick for the things he'd said the night before.

He knew that Nick had been under the influence of the musai when he'd said them and consequently hadn't really meant them. Or, at least, he tried really hard to believe that.

He knew that Nick had been gruff with Hank and Juliette too. So, it wasn't as though he'd been singled out. But for some reason, that didn't really help.

The trouble was, well, he just hoped that there wasn't some truth to how Nick really felt underlying those things.

If it weren't for Nick, he wouldn't have the life that he had. He knew that. He figured that Nick at least sort of knew that. Of course, Nick probably didn't realize it was Monroe's constant consolation for being friends with the neediest and most presumptuous person he had ever met. But it wasn't like he needed to.

While Monroe let Nick know if he was pushing his buttons too hard, for the most part, he just let Nick's, well, Nickness slide because, at the end of the day, he knew Nick needed him as much as he needed Nick. He had thought that that was still true.

So Nick blatantly stating that he'd prefer it if he were to go back into his shell, hibernating with his clocks, like they hadn't become something more than a detective and an informal informant, like Nick hadn't invited his personal life into his living room without any kind of permission from day one, like them living together wasn't more than just convenient cohabitation, stung.

And knowing Nick, Monroe imagined he'd be lucky if Nick even thought that he ought to apologize, instead of just assuming, hey, I was kind of under a spell, water under the bridge, right?

However, while an apology didn't seem to be on the horizon, it seemed that Nick had thought that he owed Monroe something. It just happened to be the veggie steaks.

Monroe tensed as he saw the two white paper wrappers secured around the pseudo meat on the second shelf of the refrigerator.

I figured I still owed them to you, Nick was written in black marker across both packages.

"For the love of God, Nick. It's not about the steak," Monroe muttered as he tried to refrain from slamming the door shut. He was really glad Nick wasn't home because he was now fuming about the closest thing to an apology he was likely to get.

_It's about you standing me up for dinner - not even bothering to call. It's about you telling me to stay out of your life like it's not completely your fault I'm in it. It's about you essentially telling me we aren't even friends._

_It's about how a simple 'I'm sorry' wouldn't kill you._

After deliberately slowly closing the door, Monroe hung onto the refrigerator handle like an anchor, just gathering up all of the reasons why he was still upset. Then he just sank down on the floor and leaned his back against the refrigerator and placed his hand over his eyes.

Being friends with Nick was exhausting and headache inducing sometimes. He couldn't even remember why he had come in the kitchen to begin with.

When he finally did, unwilling to dignify the steaks with a second look, he pulled himself up off the floor and decided that he'd pick up something for lunch for himself and Rosalee on his way to the spice shop.

* * *

After a pleasant and completely Nick free afternoon, in which Rosalee had assured him a number of times that she was sure Nick hadn't meant anything by what he'd said, Monroe was feeling considerably more charitable towards him.

That feeling turned out to be fleeting, however, when he came home to the pervasive scent of smoke which suggested that Nick might be in the middle of burning the house down. Of course, not so uncharitable that he thought Nick ought to burn down with it.

"Nick? Where are you?!" Monroe shouted, completely panicked, as he ran into the house, heading towards the strong smell emanating from the kitchen. He didn't know why he bothered to ask. Where there's smoke, there's fire, and where there's something disastrous going on, there's Nick.

"In the kitchen," Nick shouted back. A moment later, he added a muttered and annoyed, "Trying to make dinner."

Monroe breathed a sigh of relief both for Nick and his house when he saw Nick batting smoke away from himself, staring disbelievingly into the oven at two completely and irreparably blackened steaks. A few additional tendrils of blackish grey trailed out as Nick, clearly realizing it was a lost cause, reached in to pull the cooking sheet out.

Although he had oven mitts over his hands, those did nothing to prevent most of his arm from grazing the upper oven rack. He gave a gasp of surprise and pain as Monroe immediately led him to the sink. He turned on the cold water and stuck Nick's arm under it, "Keep it under there."

Leaving Nick to follow his instructions, Monroe set about clearing the smoke out of the kitchen by throwing the steaks away and opening the kitchen windows. Then he went in search of his first aid kit.

When he came back in the kitchen, Nick was sitting at the table staring at his arm.

"It doesn't look like it's too bad?" He asked, turning eyes that were still watering from the smoke up at Monroe.

"Not that I'm condoning you trying to burn down my kitchen or anything, but everyone could do with a battle scar or two from cooking," Monroe said as he sat down. "Which, by the way, was something I thought you said you didn't do."

"I don't," Nick said, waving emphatically at the remaining smoke.

"Well the next time an urge to experiment with broiling takes you, can you at least wait until I'm here to do, you know, damage control?" Monroe asked. "I'm kind of fond of my kitchen."

"It wouldn't have been a surprise if you'd been here," Nick said.

"I'll say," Monroe said before what Nick was implying caught up with him. "...you were doing this for me?"

"Well, for us. I thought making us dinner might make up for the other night," Nick said.

Monroe didn't say anything, initially, because he was completely floored. Instead, he focused on rooting through his first aid kit for the antibiotic cream, "Let me see your arm."

"You know I didn't mean anything I said, right?" Nick asked as he placed his arm within easy reach of Monroe's hands. Monroe started rubbing the cream into Nick's arm over the burns without a word. "I didn't. Monroe, I don't say this enough, but I need you."

Monroe thought he said that particular phrase plenty, but Nick didn't sound like he was finished so he waited.

Nick continued, "Not just because you're wesen and can read German, although I can't say that hurts, but also because you try to ground me when no one else even realizes I need to be grounded. From what everyone else has told me, that musai probably would have gotten the better of me if it weren't for you."

"I think it took a little bit of everyone," Monroe said.

"Maybe, maybe not," Nick said. "But give yourself some credit. You're a good friend... unlike me..."

"That's not true, Nick," Monroe started as Nick put his free hand up to stop him.

"Monroe, I tried to fix you dinner, and that turned into you putting salve on my arm," Nick said. "Tell me I'm wrong."

"You are wrong. Besides, since you seem kind of new at the whole apology thing, in case no one's ever told you, you really do get points for trying," Monroe said. And in Monroe's opinion, despite his never actually stringing the words _I'm sorry_ together, he'd garnered most of them.


End file.
